


Skin Deep

by AdorableDoom



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle of Scarif, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Serious Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 06:10:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12184452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdorableDoom/pseuds/AdorableDoom
Summary: He looked as beautiful as anyone Jyn had ever known.





	Skin Deep

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Mention of serious injuries. 
> 
> “He looked like a man who’d fallen twelve stories and clawed his way back to the top. He looked as beautiful as anyone Jyn had ever known.”—Alexander Freed. Rogue One: a Star Wars story. New York: Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, 2017, pg.288.

   Cassian isn't self-conscious. If he ever was, which he can’t remember ever being, the war would have taken that from him long ago. He isn’t overly concerned with his appearance. Many beings find him attractive, he knows this, has been told so many times but the words don’t mean anything to him. His passable good looks have given him an advantage over the years here and there.  
  A lot of drunken targets have spilled a lot of secrets to a charming, smiling stranger in dimly lit cantinas, elegant galas and high end nightclubs. It’s another tool. Something he can use when it suits him. That’s about as far as his concern and consideration go. But this, sitting hunched over on the too narrow, too stiff medical bed, his ravaged back on display feels different somehow.  
   The tinny voice of the medical droid is a distant drone he’s really only half listening too. It’s familiar yet completely and utterly different in a way he can’t let himself think about. Not now. Not yet. He can feel eyes on him and it makes his face burn in a way that almost makes him grateful that his back rather than his face is being prominently displayed.  
   “Are you listening to me?” the droid said suddenly, sounding almost annoyed or as close as it could come. This too is familiar in a way that he can’t let himself think about yet. “Yes,” Cassian lies. There is a badly muffled snort of laughter just over his shoulder that brings a faint smile to his face. “Humans,” the droid said in something like irritation before rolling away on wheels that sounded to be in desperate need replacing.  
   The medical wing is still and too silent save for the faint beeping of medical equipment and the faint groans and moans of the other unfortunate beings trapped inside. Cassian almost wishes the droid would come back and rattle instructions at him just to break the— “Does it hurt at all?” It’s the first time Jyn had spoken since the droid had removed the various bacta patches and cloth bandages that had covered the expanse of his back. Cassian carefully rolled his shoulders, bracing for pain that thankfully didn’t come.  
   His back is stiff and more than a little tight but the pain that had left him in screaming agony so bad he had blacked out nearly every time they'd removed him from the bacta tank was thankfully, mercifully gone. They’d had to rebuild his spine. His back was steel plates and pins and rods beneath the latticework of scars that even bacta couldn’t erase. More metal than bone. “It feels stiff,” he said finally, “but it doesn’t hurt.”  
   Jyn let out a shaky breath. She sounds almost relieved but that might just be wishful thinking on his part. He didn’t remember much after Bodhi had pulled them from the burning sands at what Cassian had been certain was the end. Pain. He remembered pain.  
White hot and terrible and consuming. He didn’t remember much but he remembered Jyn.  Every time he’d opened his eyes in a haze of agony and pain killers, she had always been the first thing he saw. Gentle, calloused hands had always cupped his face while eyes that shined like starlight burned too brightly beneath the harsh lights above their heads. “I’m here, you’re safe,” she said each time.  
   It always sounded like a promise each time she said it. A promise he so desperately wanted to believe. Each time, Cassian had felt relief in a way that he didn’t think there were words to express. A part of him is almost grateful that he can’t see her now. Cassian isn’t self-concious.  
   There’s no room for a such a thing in life he lives. In war. Besides, it’s not as if he was . . .untouched before this. His body is a record of a lifetime of fighting. Blaster bolts, vibroblades, stun batons, and everything in-between.  
   Yet, this feels different. It’s different because he can feel Jyn’s eyes on him and the seemingly endless silence that seems to stretch into eternity. “Will it hurt if I touch you?” Jyn asked suddenly. Cassian glances over his shoulder, half expecting her to be joking but her expression is soft with something like concern and gentle with something he can’t let himself name for fear it isn't really there. Cassian looked at her for a long moment before he nodded. He expected her to lie a hesitant hand on the map of scars that cover his rebuilt back, maybe even to pull away a moment later.  
   Instead, Jyn wraps her arms around his waist and hugged him tight from behind, pulling him back against her chest and holding him there, resting her chin on his shoulder. Cassian went rigid, more out of surprise than anything else before he let himself relax into her embrace. Jyn clutches Cassian tight to her, as if she could undo what had been done to him simply by holding him close. Cassian linked their fingers, both of them calloused and scarred, and squeezes gently, letting himself sink into her with a content sigh. She’s a warm, comforting weight against his ravaged back.  
   They should just stay like this, Cassian thinks suddenly. Just stay wrapped up in each other. They can’t, he knows that, empirically, logically, Cassian knows that. He knows the war and the rebellion will come crashing back in soon enough but for just a moment, he lets himself pretend that its only them in all the galaxy. That nothing can touch them.  
   “Do you know what I thought when I saw you standing there after you shot him?” Jyn asks, breaking the lull that had seemed to settle over them. She never says his name. Neither of them do. Let the bastard who had taken so much from so many fade into obscurity. Into nothing. Jyn doesn’t wait for an answer.  
   Not that he had one.  
   She smooths the hair from his face and tucks it behind his ear before pressing a soft kiss to the shell of it that makes him shiver in a way that had nothing to do with the coldness of Echo Base. “The same thing I thought when that rust bucket took off those patches, that you’re as beautiful as anyone I’ve ever known,” she promises. He believes it. He believes her. There’s so much Cassian wants to say to her in that moment.  
   Thank you.  
   I love you.  
   Force, I love you so much.  
   Cassian doesn’t say those things. Not yet. Not now. Because if he starts saying those things he’s never going to stop saying them. Instead, he tilts his head back and presses their lips together.  
   The angle is more than a little awkward and their lips are chapped from bacta and cold but it’s Jyn and she smiles into the kiss so its perfect. They’re both smashed up and shattered and maybe even a little broken but they’re still here. They’re together. That’s enough. It’s more than enough.  
   It’s beautiful.

 


End file.
